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Wilt thou consent to be the lady of the Baron of Ballochgray?" "Geordie! Geordie!" cried the wondering, and yet loving maiden, "if I would willingly wed thee in the grave, wi' death himsel for oor priest, shall I refuse to be yours in a castle o' the livin, filled though it be wi' thae signs o' mortality?"
We cannot pretend to describe the feelings of Wat and his wife when they were introduced into the old castle; but they soon came to see that the Baron of Ballochgray was just "as guid a chiel in his ain castle as ever he was when he acted the Deevil in Christ's Kirk on the Green."
The Baron of Ballochgray and his lady, dressed in the most gorgeous style, entered the house of the old couple. The sight of the gay visiters made Wat and Kitty's eyes reel; and they screamed again from the fear that the Prince had come back, only in a new doublet, to exhibit to them their sold daughter. "I beg to introduce thee," said the Baron, "to the lady of Ballochgray my wedded wife."
A smile was again the answer of her companion, and the carriage still drove on to the well-known residence of the young Baron of Ballochgray a man who, knowing the weakness of his King, James the Third of Scotland, in his love of astrology and divination, and their sister black arts, had, with much address, endeavoured to recommend himself to his sovereign, by a character pre-established in his own castle, for a successful cultivation of the occult sciences.
At last, they were persuaded to accompany them on a visit to Ballochgray Castle; and, when they rode off in the chariot, they left behind them the belief that they too were carried off by the "Old One."
"What is the meaning o' a' this, Geordie, man?" said Marion, looking lovingly into the face of the stranger. "Could I no have met ye this night at the Three Sisters the trees in the wood o' Ballochgray without your coming to Christ's Kirk, and spreading the fear o' the deil frae town's-end to town's-end? But whar are we journeying to? and what means the carriage?"
So far Marion was enlightened; and it is not improbable that, afterwards, she knew why a secret-keeping wife was so much prized by the Baron of Ballochgray, and why he could serve two purposes that of love, and fame of supernatural powers in personating, as he had done, the Prince of Darkness in his visits to Christ's Kirk on the Green.
"Come forth, Father Anthony!" cried the Baron, "and join us by the rules and bands of holy kirk!" The man in black lifted up his head from the black-letter page; and, having called his witnesses, went through the requisite ceremonies; and Marion Webster became, within a short space, the lady of Ballochgray.
Ye mind o' bonny Peggy Lorimer o' the town's end, wha never did mair guid after she met a stranger in the woods o' Ballochgray. Ae glance o' his ee, she said, took awa her heart; and, every day after, she pined and pined, and wandered amang the woods till she grew like a wraith, but nae mair o' him did she ever see. I stricked her wi' my ain hands, and sic a corpse I never handled.
Marion was filled with terror as she cast her eyes on these shining monuments of mortality; and had, in her fear, scarcely noticed a man in black, sitting at the end of the room, poring over a black-lettered manuscript. "Marion Webster," now said her travelling companion, "behold in your old lover of the Ballochgray Wood the Baron of Ballochgray!"
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